[Footnote 147: Levau's south façade was not completely hidden by Perrault's screen, for the roofs of the end and central pavilions emerged from behind it until they were destroyed by Gabriel in 1755.]
[Illustration: PORTION OF THE EAST FAÇADE OF THE LOUVRE FROM BLONDEL'S DRAWING, SHOWING PERRAULT'S BASE.]
The construction was, however, interrupted in 1676, owing to the king's abandonment of Paris. Colbert strenuously protested against the neglect of the Louvre, and warned his master not to squander his millions away from Paris and suffer posterity to measure his grandeur by the ell of Versailles. It availed nothing. In 1670, 1,627,293 livres were allotted to the Louvre; in 1672 the sum had fallen to 58,000 livres; in 1676 to 42,082; in 1680 the subsidies practically ceased, and the great palace was utterly neglected until 1754 when Perrault's work was feebly continued by Gabriel and Soufflot.
Two domed churches in the south of Paris--the Val de Grâce and St. Louis of the Invalides--were also erected during Louis XIV.'s lifetime. Among the many vows made by Anne of Austria during her twenty-two years' unfruitful marriage was one made in the sanctuary of the nunnery of the Val de Grâce, to build there a magnificent church to God's glory if she were vouchsafed a Dauphin. At length, on 18th April 1645, the proud queen was able to lead the future king, a boy of seven years, to lay the first stone. The church was designed by F. Mansard on the model of St. Peter's at Rome, and was finished by Lemercier and others.
A refuge had been founded as early as Henry IV.'s reign in an old abbey in the Faubourg St. Marcel, for old and disabled soldiers. Louis XIV., the greatest creator of _invalides_ France had seen, determined in 1670 to extend the foundation, and erect a vast hospital, capable of accommodating his aged, crippled or infirm soldiers. Bruant and J.H. Mansard[148] among other architects were employed to raise the vast pile of buildings which, when completed, are said to have been capable of housing 7,000 men. A church dedicated to St. Louis was comprehended in the scheme, and, in 1680, a second Église Royale was erected, whose gilded dome is so conspicuous an object in south Paris; the Église Royale, which Mansard designed, was subsequently added to the church of St. Louis, and became its choir. Louis XIV., anticipating Napoleon's maxim that war must support war, raised the funds needed for the foundation by ingeniously requiring all ordinary and extraordinary treasurers of war to retain two deniers[149] on every livre that passed through their hands.